


Is It Goodbye If You Can't Hear Me?

by Texas_not_Tex



Category: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Give me my husbando back, I don't know how I avoided spoilers this long but I'm genuinely upset about this death, Kinda depressing, M/M, SHIELD thine VIRGIN EYES, Shady Naegi, allusions to nudity/sexuality, just.....keep the bodies...., there is something wrong with me .docx, they have formaldehyde, uh...gentle corpse molestation?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-29
Updated: 2017-08-29
Packaged: 2018-12-21 06:26:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,584
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11938236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Texas_not_Tex/pseuds/Texas_not_Tex
Summary: It probably goes without saying--but herein lie spoilers.If you want to see this turned into a doujin (as it was originally intended), Please Comment. I have no motivation.





	Is It Goodbye If You Can't Hear Me?

**Author's Note:**

> This has now been proofread once, but may still contain:  
> -continuity errors  
> -typos  
> -shitty prose  
> -inaccuracies (since I haven't actually finished the game)  
> And gratuitous melodrama over Best Boy, Dead Boy, Kiyotaka Ishimaru.

Everyone stood facing the red doors, reluctant to enter.  
Sakura, Hina, Celeste, Hiro, Byakuya, Toko, Kyoko and me… Eight. Where there had been fifteen. 

I was always the last to go in, but this time, I really couldn’t bear it.  
I made a show of patting down my pockets, looking nervous.

“Ah, everyone, I think I forgot my E-Handbook in the repository—Can you hold on a minute? I need to go get it…”

A general grumble went up as those in front of me turned to acknowledge my blunder. Unintelligible slander from Toko, a disgusted “Typical…” from Byakuya, and from Hina…

“Mo-ou, Naegi! Just get it afterwards! I don’t wanna think about what Monokuma would do to us if we’re late to the trial.”

But my back was already turned, heading towards the stairs to the second story.

“I’ll just be a minute!”  
If anyone said anything after that, I was too focused to hear it, and no one followed me.  
Good…

 

I moved quickly. I can’t just leave… not without saying goodbye.  
This place has distorted my sense of time, and I’m kicking myself for taking even a single hour for granted. We just didn’t have enough. Why didn’t I spend more time with him? Stupid, I was too focused on survival, too focused on assessing my “friends” as much as possible and keeping an eye out for myself. By the time I figured out that he was more important than that… more important than just playing along… I just didn’t think… I didn’t think I’d lose him so quickly…! Damn it!

My eyes burned and I felt my heart race, unrelated to my legs taking three stairs at a time. I clenched my jaw tight. _Taka_ …

\--

I remember seeing you here, at the base of the stairs. Standing tall as always, full of hope and excitement that the second floor had finally opened up. It wasn’t even that long ago.

A flood of memories with you…

…Our first real interaction, when you took me _way_ by surprise, suggesting we bathe together. It’s not like I haven’t been to a communal bath before, but there was something much more intimate about this. I guess I started to…love your directness, your openness, right there. You saw all of me and I saw all of you, and it wasn’t strange at all. I guess you were right, after all. “Bare bodies, bare minds.”  
Oddly, it was the first time since before I came to Hope’s Peak that I’d really felt comfortable.

…The cafeteria, waking up every morning and feeling safe because I knew someone was there, you were there. I don’t understand why you did things the way you did, but. I don’t know what I would have done without it.  
I don’t know what I’ll do now that I’ll never have it again.

…drinking tea and exchanging the strangest of words. You always insisted on eye contact when we spoke. It used to make me uncomfortable, but after a while, I started not really wanting to look away.

…and then, that sauna…”challenge”… with Mondo.  
I’m still embarrassed to admit what I dreamed about that night, after seeing your bare body heaving with sweat. It can’t be real to feel like that, can it? Just fake feelings, meaning nothing. If that’s the case, though; why didn’t they stop?  
Why does my breathing stop when I think of you like that?

…Seeing you after that execution… hurt. I didn’t know what to do. I should have reached out sooner. Maybe I could have helped you then? If I could have helped you, you wouldn’t have fixated on Alter Ego, and you wouldn’t have died. Right? I feel so guilty. What I could’ve done…I hated seeing your eyes so empty. 

You should never have been brought here. You are. You were. You were all shining hope, and dedication, and strength, and this hell of despair broke you.  
The way I see it is there are two sides to hope. If you’re all optimism, you’re bound to be disappointed. But if you stay safe, bind your hope to the expectation of misery; you won’t be so easily broken.  
You were always 100%, all the time. In the world we came from, you’d never have faltered. But here…  
I don’t know. How can anyone face up to something like this even if they’re expecting it? Even you?

I don’t…know if there’s anything I could have really done.  
That doesn’t make this any easier though.  
\--

I reached the door to the repository where we left you. Quieting my heavy breath, I slid inside, clicking the lock behind me. My eyes fell first on the enormous corpse to my right—Hifumi.

I felt my face settle involuntarily into an ugly mask of anger and disgust at the sight. This incident was because of him. I didn’t want to see his rotting body anywhere near yours. I know what he did, and I know who he worked with, and I _hate them_.  
I’d thought about the necessity of killing before—hadn’t we all had those moments since the game started?-- but I’d never wanted vengeance like this. I wanted he and his mistress torn to shreds before me.  
But I don't have time or energy to waste on that right now. I perfunctorily covered Hifumi’s massive body with a tarp, blocking out his ugly memory from this moment, before turning to face…

…You.

I suddenly remembered Kyoko making me pry the paper from your fist during the investigation. Cold, unyielding. It clashed with my memory of your skin so strongly I felt sick.

“Ishimaru…”  
I finally fell to my knees beside your body like I’d wanted to do ever since I’d seen you like this. You were so, so unnaturally still. I couldn’t stand it. I hate this.

You only notice how light life is once you feel the unstrung weight of a corpse.

That object which looks like you moved in all the wrong ways when I lifted it to my lap. I stopped caring then about bloodstains on my shirt or my hands. This was my only goodbye, why would anything else take precedence over that?  
I cradled your body as close to me as physical objects can be. Your hair, sticky with your given-up life, played through my shaking fingers, and I cried.  
It was your face, your body, your being. Why couldn’t it be you? I miss you so much. It hurts, Taka. I hate that you felt this too, for Mondo. And you never even got to say goodbye.  
Makes me wish we’d just met somewhere else.  
Somewhere clean.  
Why couldn’t we meet somewhere else? 

“Ishimaru, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

I looked at your still-handsome face through my clouded eyes. I’d seen you cry, too. You wouldn’t mind it. I felt the words I needed to say rising up in my throat, heavy like stones.

“I love you.” 

The words felt clumsy, and not enough. Not enough, too late. But what other words could describe this? I don’t have any way of knowing.  
I said it as many times as I could fit into the seconds that passed, until my voice was too jumbled to sound right anymore. I fell silent, wiping my tears, and balanced your head in my arms. 

I kissed you like that, as long as I liked. Even though you were cold on my lips and tongue.

“Please,” I whispered onto you. I didn’t know exactly what I was asking for…  
I held you close again, trying to fill both of our bodies with the heat of life, to re-string you.

“If souls are real.” I mumbled thoughtlessly  
“I want to be where yours is.”

…

 

A knock on the door and an irritated voice broke through.  
“Naegi, everyone is waiting for you! What the hell are you doing in there? Grab your handbook and come ON!” It was Hina again, then.

I startled, snapping back hollowly into the person I was expected to be. Willing myself to move with mechanical necessity, I put down the corpse. I suppose it was nice of Monokuma to let a friend come get me rather than doing it himself.

I quickly threw the tarp off of Hifumi, and exited the Repository; clutching my “found” E-Handbook sheepishly as I slipped out the door.

“Sorry, it was underneath something, I almost didn’t find it…”

“Why did you lock the door?” She eyed me suspiciously. Sakura, who came along presumably for Hina’s peace of mind, simply waited patiently in the doorway of the classroom.

“Was it locked? I’m sorry, I must have hit it on my way in. Come on, you were right; we’d better go.”  
I took off ahead of them.

\--  
“That was definitely a little suspicious. It couldn’t be Naegi who…?”

“No. This case… it weighed on him more than any of us. We should leave him be.”

The powerful woman looked after the figure of the boy ahead of them. On his palm, she thought she saw a pink smear. But she didn’t say anything more.  
\--

 

The elevator descended, and I felt a fire in my chest beside the stinging pain of loss. I couldn’t help but stretch my face into a joyless grin. _Zettai teki na seigi_. Absolute justice. I would witness it, I would deliver it. 

A deadly judgement… a deadly deception… a deadly betrayal…

A deadly riddle, a deadly defense, a deadly faith…

A deadly… class trial!

**Author's Note:**

> Jeg elsker deg
> 
>  
> 
> This Is Foolish?


End file.
